Teaming Tribulations: Using a Role Playing Game to Improve Teaming Outcomes

This paper discusses the development and implementation of a board game intended to simulate conversations and debates or negotiations that may occur in design-based projects. One of the challenging tasks for a design group is learning how to collaborate and debate in a constructive and productive way. This study gives an overview of simulations and games used to assist pedagogy and efforts at improving teamwork in design courses. This information is utilized to discuss the implementation and effect of a pedagogical board game, "Teaming Tribulations." This game is intended to simulate the arguments that might occur within a design team discussion in a zero-stakes environment. In Teaming Tribulations, students are asked to create a quick design in response to a simple prompt. They then share their designs during the judgment-free "Concept Generation Phase." In the next phase of the game, "Concept Selection and Debate," they must debate with their teammates to select the best design to submit for their fictional group project. The game is given a twist as two factors, namely the initial biases (which design that they must initially defend and entice others to vote for) and personality types (how they interact with other players) of each player, are both determined by randomly dealt cards. This role-playing causes the students to step outside of their comfort zone and internally reflect on how they share their opinions normally versus how others might make a similar point. In the "Grading" phase of the game, the team receives a score based on if they were able to receive a majority or total consensus. The objective of implementing this game within a classroom environment is to start the discussion on teaming, as well as provide a low-fidelity simulation of the design process for comparison during the semester. Later in the semester, concept selection methods are taught with the reminder that it is not ideal to judge based on initial biases and gut feelings. The paper is a further developed version of a work-in-progress paper from last year's conference and includes three semesters' worth of survey data from two institutions. Students found the game to be enjoyable, useful as a framework to describe issues with teaming, and identified archetypes that they would like to see in a team.